Fujiwara Family Essay

During the Heian period the government was drained of money while the provincial governors gained power. This allowed more militaristic families take control of the government. Minamoto Yoritomo was a member of one such family, he installed the military government and later stole power from the aristocracy. He did this because the provincial governors and squires cheated their way out of taxes.

The Fujiwara family was the most powerful family in the early and middle Heian period. Fujiwara Michinaga reached a high level of power when the Fujiwara family gave birth to three consecutive emperors. Fujiwara Michinaga also sired three daughters who each became a consort to emperors (Britannica, Japan) The Fujiwara family was one of the most powerful families during the Heian period. While they were not of direct imperial blood through constant marriage and the

"Younger members of the imperial family and lower-ranking aristocrats dissatisfied with the Fujiwara monopoly of high government officials would take up posts as local officials in the provinces, where they settled permanently, acquired lands of their own, and established their own power." They were able to do this through flaws in the taxing system. Allowing people who usually would not have a lot of prestige to gain mass amounts of power. Moreover there were other ways that you could avoid taxes, one of them came when, Japan found new land that had not yet been cultivated,"But incentives had to be offered and so the new land was excluded from taxation and allotment under the Taika reform.”(Morton W. Scott, 44) With these new incentives people rushed to claim the nontaxable land, creating rice farms where they could reap the profits without ever paying taxes for it. Another way